Updated as of June 23rd, 2021.
Hello, all. This is Chapter 14. Woo.
School is being just...crazy. I went overboard with clubs and stuff, and combine that with all the higher level classes I'm in, well, you get no time to yourself, not even on weekends because you decided it would be a good idea to be in soccer.
Gah.
ONTO THE STORY.
Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins would not write FanFiction on her own story. Or...Would she? 0_0
FLASHBACK TO THE LAST CHAPTER
I stood rooted in place, unknowingly looking rather foolish for stopping so far from the crowd, although I wouldn't have cared even if I had realized it. My vision tunneled as I focused solely on Emery, on the way his body rolled with the punches. I focused on the cold, almost chilling look on his face as he fought. The muscles in his back coiling before every toss of his arm. I focused on how his legs planted themselves to give him the best stance to defend himself, and then follow through and counter the attack. The hardened look in his eye. The small birthmark on the underside of his chin.
It was him.
It all started with a little girl no more than seven years old.
Her dark, pitch black hair held back always by a shiny ribbon tied in a neat bow. A young child with one front tooth missing, skin tanned from the hours of being outside, and huge eyes as blue and boundless as the ocean she had never seen. Her love of life forever tugging her lips into a lopsided grin, full of happiness and innocence. She trusted everyone, that childish foolishness taking root deep in her very being. She was too trusting. And in the end, it burned her deeper than any wound could.
Her only friend, a young boy in the class ahead of her, was the light to her rainy days. He knew her family. He hung around her little brother and sister without complaint. And he didn't care how she came to be. They made each other laugh as they played the day away, whether it consisted of running through the meadow and picking flowers for her mother, or playing hide-and-seek through the neighborhoods around their homes. As long as they were together, they were happy. She trusted him with everything.
He came to her house just like every other day, his eager, crooked smile lighting his grey eyes up as he looked past her mother into the room behind her. Grey met blue, and soon enough the two were off, the little girl telling him anything and everything that happened while they were apart. He listened to her as she babbled on, the smile slowly falling off of his face. She didn't even think twice about his silence, secure in the knowledge he liked to listen to her rather than talk about what happened back at his house. He never liked to talk about that.
They went to the meadow like always, this time the boy teaching the girl how to make grass whistle. She tried her hardest, doing exactly as he told her to with every blade of grass she came across. Her mother had dressed her in her favorite yellow dress that day, her signature pink ribbon tying her long hair back so she wouldn't have to worry about it. Grass stains littered the bottom of her skirt from crawling about to find the perfect piece of grass. He watched with a small smile, but his eyes looked sad that day. She tried to get him to tell her what was wrong, but like usual, he wouldn't tell. She pouted, but otherwise left it alone. He would tell her eventually, she just had to wait it out.
The sky began getting darker, and the little boy started to grow pale. The curious girl began getting worried, but he reassured her that he was fine, but he had to head home soon. This caused the girl to frown. It meant that she had to go home too, because his house was forbidden. When he continued on to tell her he wanted her to come with, she swore her grin would split her face in half.
She asked him a million questions as they started walking, but he didn't really answer any of them. He just got paler, and paler, and paler, until he was almost as white as the snow that fell in the winter before it got mixed with the coal dust. So, she went quiet, instead holding his hand and playing with his fingers to distract herself.
He wouldn't talk the entire walk to his house.
She wouldn't talk when he went towards to the alley beside it, motioning for her to still follow.
He wouldn't talk when they made to the other side, the back of the dusty, old brick building giving the girl an uneasy feeling.
She wouldn't talk when a strange man strolled over to them.
He wouldn't talk when his father patted him on the back for doing what he was told.
She wouldn't talk as she clutched his arm for comfort.
He wouldn't talk when his father yanked her away from him.
She wouldn't talk when the disgusting man told her what she had to do.
He wouldn't talk as the sleazy, cowardly men gathered around, money in hand, as the other children emerged.
She wouldn't talk when the alcohol-ridden breath burned her eyes and the tears welled.
He wouldn't talk when the first fight started.
She wouldn't talk when it was his turn.
He wouldn't talk when the smelly man shoved her over, knocking her down and scraping her knees.
She wouldn't talk as the tears poured down her fragile face, eyes locking with those she had trusted.
He wouldn't talk as the man whispered what he would do to her family if she ran away.
She wouldn't talk when he yelled at them to start.
Her light on a rainy day.
His only good thing left in the world.
She was the daughter of a coal miner's child and a butcher's son, her life ridiculed for being born out of wedlock.
He was the son of District 12's illegal fighting ring's leader, his life worth nothing more than the fights his father forced him in.
For years, they tried to forget.
She succeeded.
He didn't.
She repressed the memories. Forgot the good times along with the bad. She blocked out his entire existence in her life. But you can never really forget when the scars litter the skin like the trash littered that alleyway.
He could only watch her from afar, looking on as the ribbons disappeared so the hair could hide the scars. How the dresses and skirts were replaced with pants. The carefree, lopsided grin gave way to an empty mask. Her bright, tinkling laugh stopped entirely. She was a ghost of her former self. And it was all his fault.
She moved on, the wounds never really healing.
Regret ate at him every time he saw her.
The little girl grew up into a tough young woman, having sought out someone else to free her from where he had drug her down.
The little boy grew into a strong young man, having only been buried deeper in the Ring.
They were strangers.
He thought they would never be brought together again. How ironic it was that they would be tributes together.
Scarred bodies and equally scarred minds, trapped with a knowledge of the dark side of their district that they would be killed for if they told.
But nobody ever knew. They made sure of it.
When she volunteered, all he could think about was that he never got to say he was sorry for everything he ever put her through. All the guilt, the regret, he'd been feeling throughout the years washed over him and ate him alive.
When his name was called, she felt nothing, her memories of him held behind bolted doors deep within the confines of her mind. He was just another Seam kid unlucky enough to be drawn for these hideous games that she might have to kill. And maybe that's what broke him the slightest bit more.
They went to their separate rooms to say goodbye to their loved ones. He hadn't been in the room for more than a minute before his father showed up. The horrible man degraded him, spitting derisive words left and right, aiming to get under his skin. He told him he never had a chance in the Games, and neither did the dark-haired girl he was partnered with.
All the emotions swirling inside of the boy came to a head, and instead of holding back like he had done all those years, he let them out.
He screamed at the poor excuse of a man. All the rage, the regret, the despair, the bitterness...It finally lashed out. He told his father how when he made it out of the Games he was going to tell everything. He would unveil all the illegal activities his father so loved to control. He told him how huge a disgrace he was to the human race, and that he was glad his mother was dead just so she wouldn't have to deal with his abusiveness anymore. His father was livid. He only got one shot in before the Peacekeepers dragged him out, the boy's face already starting to swell from the blow.
His father was the only one to come say goodbye. He didn't care. It's not like he wanted to make friends, not since what happened to her. He didn't want to ruin more people's lives. He'd learned his lesson.
They progressed through the preparations of the Games together, and he had to keep telling himself to hold back, be distant, every time he came in contact with her. He didn't know if he could stand having her be so...well...her, but not know who he was. That she didn't remember all the good times they had before the bad came into her life.
The night she came to apologize was the hardest one for him. He felt all of his carefully structured walls go down, her flustered pout reminding him of when he used to steal her ribbons because he liked when she wore her hair down. He let the fact that she'd seen him naked before slip, a part of him hoping she remembered, a part of him knowing she wouldn't.
She apologized and left, confused and unsure, to go back to her compartment. Then he knew for a fact she didn't remember him. He forced himself to go to sleep, back to the nightmares that plagued him ever since that day.
She got hurt, the District 7 tribute breaking skin with her vicious bite. An expert escorted her away, and he couldn't stop watching her. She was so different from the girl he used to know, the one who had cried if she tripped and scraped her knee.
His name was called, his match coming much too soon for his liking. All those years in the Ring had taught him almost every trick in the book when it came to fighting bare-handed, but he knew he couldn't use all of them. When the session started, he ducked and weaved, rolling with the punches like his worthless father taught him. He heard the door open, but not really. The District 4 boy laughed, seeming to like the game they played. Eyes boring holes into his back made his skin crawl with the memories of those dark nights, when the crowd of men would watch on, too drunk to really care about the lack of humanity. A small gasp, the sound barely decipherable, but still loud enough for him to hear. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his skin suddenly alive with a tingling sensation, making his stomach drop and flutter at the same time.
Laurel.
A/N: Hi again. Here's an edited and lengthened version of what was originally put up.
How'd ya'll like that? I've been trying to find time to just sit down and write my woes away for weeks now, and yet I haven't located the time yet. So, I'm really sorry if this is less than top-quality. I've been trying so hard to get this out to you all, and, well, here it is.
Also! As of before this chapter, this story has received over 21,000 views! That is ridiculous! And awesome! Gah! Love you guys!
Okay, that's all I gots fo now.
Welp.
Bye.